Does Quentin Tarantino Have a New Film?

May 9, 2001

On the eve of the 54th Cannes International Film Festival, the biggest buzz is not surrounding the opening-night film, Moulin Rouge, or even the new, extended-length edit of Francis Ford Coppola’s past Cannes prizewinner, Apocalypse Now.

No, all the talk is about Quentin Tarantino’s new film—or lack thereof. See, there’s a big rumor that Tarantino—who hasn’t shown his face since 1997’s lackluster Jackie Brown—is going to have an unpublicized screening of a secret new film of his, an adaptation of an Elmore Leonard western entitled 40 Lashes. The rumor is quite extravagant and goes on to detail exactly how Tarantino could’ve pulled off a "secret" film—by hiding his production beneath the umbrella of his producer friend Lawrence Bender’s much bigger production, The Mexican. Tarantino could've shot the thing down in South America and used his usual crew of actors, all of whom supposedly have suspicious gaps in their employment history around that time.

There are more details. But the point is clear—Cannes is hungry for something big, something splashy. Something that it hasn’t seen since the days of Pulp Fiction and Apocalypse Now, or even since David Lynch won the Palme d'Or with his Wild at Heart. One of the hot tickets, in fact, is the new Lynch film, Mulholland Drive.

I arrived in Cannes today with my friend and assistant director, Craig Ouellette. Way back in 1997, when I was a senior at the University of Iowa, I filmed a little 16mm movie called Jefftowne. It’s a documentary about a 38-year-old man named Jeff Town who, as my synopses reads, is a "beer-loving, porno-consuming, wrestling fanatic with Down’s Syndrome." Shot with almost no knowledge of how film works (both figuratively and mechanically), this rather unassuming piece of work ended up having a sort of naive, honest charm to it.

It premiered at one of the biggest film festivals in America, the Slamdance Film Festival, and played at a bunch of smaller fests. It even won a couple of awards along the way.

But that was in 1998. Three years later, I find myself with the film in Cannes because I recently sold the rights to infamous film distributor Troma Films, the only company that didn’t run screaming from Jefftowne. Not because the film is bad but because it’s virtually unsellable. (Can YOU imagine a controversial, low-budget documentary about Down’s Syndrome selling out your local multiplex?)

Troma Films is best known for its fun, sex and blood-filled masterpieces like The Toxic Avenger, Class of Nuke ‘Em High and, most recently, Tromeo and Juliet. Although the lion’s share of Troma’s films is rather crass, there are undeniably diamonds to be found in the rough. Underground gems like Combat Shock and Bloodsucking Freaks are among the truly shocking films of our time, and recent Troma productions like Tromeo and Terror Firmer are simply very good movies. Disgusting, perhaps revolting, but also hilarious and endlessly creative. It’s taken 25 years, but Troma president Lloyd Kaufman now knows how to make a good movie.

So I’m not here to sell a film; it’s already been sold. I’m here for two reasons: first, to appear at Jefftowne’s two screenings and help Troma sell the movie to foreign shores and domestic buyers as best I can; and second, to chill out on the French Riviera.

The second reason is turning out to be more difficult than I had imagined. The place is a circus. And I mean that almost literally—an enormous carousel sits along the Croisette, which is the beach running alongside the Mediterranean. Ads for Moulin Rouge include huge replicas of elephants, stages and circus paraphernalia. Vendors sell food, photographers photograph, tattooers tattoo.

The Troma crowd, true to their image, are anti-everything, most of all establishment. They disdain ties and slacks; instead, they have died hair and skateboarding tees. They bounce down the street talking loudly and finding what they see as a good excuse to be an "ugly American"—namely, shouting out insults to any huge crowd surrounding a hotel entrance, hoping to catch a glimpse of Nicole Kidman or Johnny Depp.

People mutter "Troma freaks" as they pass; Troma is well known at the festival for creating chaos and crashing parties. Last year, a man dressed as the Toxic Avenger (who is your garden-variety mutated janitor with superhuman strength) bum-rushed Jean-Claude Van Damme’s grand entrance from a boat and challenged him to a fight. Van Damme reportedly went back inside the boat and did not re-emerge.

And while some of Troma’s crew are younger kids who, due to their age, are still allowed to just "be angry," Troma’s actual employees are sharp. Behind their spiked hair and I-don’t-give-a-fuck demeanor shines a savvy intelligence. It’s not hard to be shocked when they suddenly snap up a cell phone, sounding for all the world just like a Universal Studios film rep (who, incidentally, Troma employee Doug Sakkman proudly refers to as "the enemy").

After all, these are the same kids (and although a lot of them actually ARE kids, it feels okay to label the entire Troma Team "kids;" it’s meant as a compliment, mostly) who will be up at 6:00 a.m. every morning to pass out Troma fliers to every single room in the major Cannes hotels—no matter how drunk they got last night. These are the same kids who are buying full-page color ads for Troma in the trades and who are part of Troma Films, one of the most recognizable and longest-lasting independent film companies in America.

The festival officially begins tonight. Au revoir.